djay & vjay Get Multitude Of Improvements On iOS, Audiobus arrives…

Audiobus offers a lot of scope for creative routing of audio within your iOS device, not to mention the possibility of uploading your mix to external services.

Algoriddim just updated its djay and vjay apps with a whole host of improvements and fixes, hot on the heels of the last flurry of changes. Audiobus for djay is the big news, but it's only one of many improvements. Oh, and if you're a djay user and are always pushed for storage space on your iOS device, you'll definitely want to read to the end for some more news...

iPhone/iPad changes to vjay and djay

The iPad and iPhone versions of both apps have been updated with some commonality throughout. The changes are as follows:

Pause playback when disconnecting headphones or dock audio

Improved handling of iOS audio system errors

Changed Ion Audio iDJ2Go jogwheels to scratch during playback (the previous pitch-bend behaviour can be enabled using "Jog Pitch Bend Mode" in the Midi settings)

This last change is good news for Spin2 owners, as the tempo slider is rather small so fine adjustments were difficult before the update. The addition of scratch functionality to the iDJ2Go is an strange one; it's not something I'll be running back to do again having given it a go. The jogwheels are tiny and so it's no fun. (I also think they probably have a low tickcount, meaning they send less data than most resulting in them being even less responsive.)

iPad-only changes to vjay & djay

With your iPad and Pioneer DDJ-WeGo or DDJ-Ergo, you can now use Algoriddim's djay and vjay programs thanks to this cable and mapping updates.

This is great news for owners of these controllers as it should open the possibilities for other iOS DJ apps to follow suit. There are a number of questions I have around the cable, but I'll address them in the forthcoming review.

djay changes on iPad & iPhone

The following are the main changes for the djay apps (both iPad and iPhone versions):

The big news here, of course, is Audiobus (which we mentioned in our February article). Using Audiobus, you could play your mix in djay, pass it through an FX app (such as LiveFX) and then into one of the DAW-type apps (such as GarageBand). In fact, using the Audiobus flow you could overcome missing features in djay such as uploading your mix directly to SoundCloud (copyright police permitting, of course).

vjay changes on iPad & iPhone

The vjay app received only a couple of specific changes. One was fixing an issue when trying to load movies from the Camera Roll, the other being the addition of a "Reset EQ" option in the settings - which could save you a lot of frantic tapping between tracks.

Finally...

All of the above items are the official detail from Algoriddim on the app updates. However, a video has appeared on YouTube showing how to access tracks stored on a Seagate GoFlex Satellite external WiFi hard drive for use on the djay app.

Storage on iOS devices is notoriously expensive when compared with the current price of external hard drives, so such approach is certainly interesting. The process shown in the video feel laborious (loading a track into the file access app and then into djay, where it gets cached) and so is not ideal, but perhaps it's worth keeping an eye open in case a more streamlined method emerges in the future.

Do you use vjay or djay on your iOS device? what improvements would you like to see made to the apps to give you a better experience? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

• Both apps are available in the App Store for your iPhone or iPad.

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Comments

Until iPad allows access to USB devices such as an external hdd or any controller, I can’t take it seriously. Such a pity as they’re most of the way there. Even a single USB slot which could be expanded with a powered USB port extender.

You can already plug many controllers into an iOS device using the CCK – as long as those controllers don’t need to load any drivers (ie they’re class compliant). Manufacturers are gradually getting the idea, so you’ll see more class compliant controllers this year onwards.

As for USB…I plug a powered USB hub into my iPad using the CCK and can push several controllers into my iOS setup and even a soundcard (if I had one).

I think we’re unlikely to see a USB port appear on an iOS device any time soon…and even if we did, the same class compliance requirement would still be there.

I have a ion idj2go and of course the scratching is not great as the wheels are not touch sensitive but as a knock around bit I kit that I picked up for $15 to use for an impromptu party it is good. No real chance of battling with those jogs and that fader all though the fader now has blend or sharp cut in. But with the jogs they need to be moving to have the audio not playing and then nudged forward to make it pick back up quickly.

My biggest gripe with DJAY is that its BPM reader is fairly inaccurate, which makes beat matching an absolute ball ache. It’s the only feature that stops you from pressing the fine-tune tempo button frantically and look like an all round knob. A wave form would certainly not go a miss either.. Fix the problems or i’ll have to go to the other competitors who are developing quick!

Beat Gridding would be nice, went to a party at the weekend and saw how the DJ joined to tracks together, no mixing involved. That would be nice, or maybe a DJay Pro that you could pay extra for. What do you think?

For sure. Beat-gridding is one of those pro-level features we’re seeing more of on iOS apps…plus I am a bit obsessive with my track preparation (slight OCD perhaps?) so any excuse to do my homework on the train is welcome!

Traktor killed the competition .Native Instruments has the tendency to wait while other developers churn out so-so programs, all the while NI observes the half cooked programs, vst’s, DAWs and hardware.Then they replace the mistakes with innovation, throw a sleek UI or colored pads.. Anyhow…

Unless Serato makes a equally bad ass App,and Pioneer makes the new wireless controllers compatible with it, then I don’t see Djay or anything else similar to it beating Traktor on IOS

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